I've mentioned this band in my previous entry and then realized than their music is surprisingly hard to find, so it'd be nice of me to post their album too. While I don't think it's avant-garde enough to be called "RIO" or "avant-prog", it's certainly influenced by the Rock In Opposition sound, and it's one of those Soviet experimental gems that are undeservedly forgotten nowadays (along with Стук Бамбука в XI Часов).

Джунгли / Jungle were formed in Leningrad in 1983 (according to other sources - in 1981), initially as a standard hard rock band. Fun fact: the name "Jungle" was chosen after some old man has called the audience of Leningrad Rock Club "a real zoo", and the band members answered jokingly: "It's worse than a zoo, it's jungle!".

By 1984-1985, their sound has evolved into art rock / jazz-rock. According to the band's gutarist, Andrey Otsryaskin, they were mostly influenced by Peter Gabriel, Robert Fripp, King Crimson, Oregon, and Krzysztof Penderecki. Sergey Kuryokhin, probably the best known avant-garde musician in the Leningrad rock scene of that time, also had a lot of influence on them (and it's most likely him who sparked their interest in free jazz). Since late 1987, their style finally shifted away from standard rock music (apart from jazz, they were also interested in medieval music and polyrhythmic folk music at that time). The same year, they had their first chance to perform abroad - first in Poland, then in Denmark and Finland. Their decision to play purely instrumental music has helped them a lot, since they wouldn't have to worry that the audience won't understand the lyrics. By 1990, the band's lineup was reduced to a trio. Then in 1992, when Andrey Otsryaskin realized that his band doesn't have much future in a country which just entered a deep crisis, he decided to emigrate. Thus the story of Jungle has ended.

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About this blog

I created this blog mostly because I wanted to practise my English skills, and to showcase the industrial, gothic, punk, metal, neofolk and progressive rock scene of Russia/ex-USSR and Eastern Europe (especially Hungary) in the meanwhile.

As you can see, this blog doesn't take itself seriously enough, but I hope I'm doing good enough with my reviews even if my proficiency in English is limited. Along with the aforementioned stuff from Eastern Europe, I occasionally post some classic and rare albums that aren't to be missed, and generally whatever I want. Other categories of note:

* finno-ugric rarities - various music (including pop) in minor Finno-Ugric languages which I'm interested in because of my heritage. The music from Hungary, Finland and Estonia can be found under the respective categories;

* lo-fi - various poorly recorded demos from before 2000 that are of historical importance. Most of these demos come from the USSR era, so you might want to check out the USSR category as well.

As of now, I try to post only music that has already been made free by the artists themselves, or the rare old releases that are out of print. But if you're an artist and would like me to remove the download links of your work, just contact me using the form below.

Sorry, I don't do reviews by request, I don't have the time. Moreover, I think the bands that feel the need to advertise themselves by sending their demos to as many blogs as possible are usually just plain boring. If you want to contact me for any other reason, use the contact form below.

It should be obvious enough that reviewing anything on here doesn't equals endorsement of artists' personal views. This especially concerns neofolk and martial industrial. It'd be fair enough to say that I have the same approach to the political and religious topics in these genres as Laibach do.

Many of the female musicians featured on my blog are amateur models, and in many cases their modelling work is no less interesting than their music. Right now I'm working on giving it a separate section of the blog (just in case if anyone wants my review to be only about their music and not their looks). The work is in progress, check back later if you're interested.

The title of my blog comes from a song by The Kovenant (album "SETI", 2003).